Roleplay StageThis is where the In-Character roleplaying happens. Before you create a thread here, recruit some players in Roleplay Casting. Your very own legend is about to unfold! A world of dreams and adventures awaits! Let's go!

New threads in this forum are to be approved by a moderator before they are displayed.

((OOC: I will try to get this RP more lively by stepping away from steering Krissu as a main player for a while, or for good, we'll see. Instead I'll focus on giving you guys things to do by assigning events and playing NPCs and whatnot. To begin with, I want to make sure that everyone knows where they really are at this moment in MAO :p ))

Retro Bug // Fara O'Shay

As you emerge from the cave, Birdie is waiting for you. He has been a look-out but what he has failed to spot is the flames that are climbing from tree to tree slowly but surely up towards Dark Cave from route 30 in the south. Will you react to the forest fire or will you just continue onward to Route 31's so far unburnt fields and Violet City?

Skymin // BiRDiE

Truth is, you weren't really keeping tight lookout. After getting some neat training, you are met with Fara coming out from the cave again. What you haven't noticed is the fire that has begun spreading unnaturally fast across the landscape around the cave while you walked around. The top of route 30 is pretty much not on fire anymore, but the north eastern route 31 is covered in flames. If you turn around now, you'll notice it, unless Fara notifies you first. MAO isn't always logical, it seems.

machomuu // Fel

You are on your way to the fire to see what you can do about it. As you are closing in, near the Dark Cave, you see that several people have grouped up and are trying to douse the fire by letting Poliwag and other water type pokémon spray water attacks on it. It doesn't seem to help. But they are focusing on a small area... perhaps they are trying to rescue someone who is stuck in the fire in that spot? Or perhaps they really are dumb NPCs who believe they can put out a forest fire with only a handful of water pokémon.

If you turn on your HUD, you will see if they are NPCs or Players. The truth is up to you, unless you want the GM to control them. In that case, say so in the OOC thread or via VM/PM.

Codaq // Albero

You have entered route 31 and can see the fire up ahead. But now you have stumbled upon an unfamiliar trainer. Is he a NPC or another player? What will Schoener really do??

Do you want to control the tall, tanned trainer yourself or do you want the GM to control him? Reply in OOC or VM/PM.

Fuyu // Ange Lumis

You have run away from your traveling partner and left your Caterpie in the care of her and Mr Pokémon. Unfortunately, you have not quite escaped the fire yet. As you enter route 31, the fire is still blazing on ahead, having spread quicker than you thought; behind you the forest has already respawned after burning down. Will you just evade the fire or will you find people or a need to help out?

Jake♫ // |Kinder|

You realize that you meant route 30 and not route 31. How difficult will your journey towards Mr Pokémon's house be? Will you meet a wild pokémon, a NPC trainer or another player? This routes has it all but is but an obstacle before the real challenge in Violet City...

jasonwolf // Jercio Shade

You have taken on the challenge at the Academy. If you win three matches in a row, you will receive a prize! Of course, this is the only place so far in MAO where you can actually have all your pokémon fainting without whiting out. As long as you remember to heal them before you leave the Academy building, of course... Rumors say that if you lose three battles in a row, you will also get a prize.

Do you want to control Gregory, your opponent, yourself or do you want the GM to control him? Reply in OOC or VM/PM.

Miss Doronjo // Luxanna

You stumble out from the Dark Cave and encounter a tall trainer with pink hair; another MAO player. She looks troubled.

"Lovely... I wish," the trainer mutters. "Haven't you seen the fire?" She gestures behind her, hoping that you'll notice the orange glow in the sky and the trees a little ways away that are strangely enough on fire. Had that ever happened before in a pokémon game?

"I was going to scout out the cave since I usually skipped it in the old games... But MAO is so very different." Her gaze floats into the darkness behind you. "Is there really impenetrable darkness in there? Do you really have to use FLASH to be able to get around?"

Claire* // Solomon

The forest fire spurred you on and made you feel confident enough to challenge the gym. Will you train in the Academy or the Sprout Tower first, or will you be the first player who defeats Falkner and opens up the road south so that the story of MAO can continue?

雷影 イチロ // Aertio

You move north out onto Route 30 without having spoken to the Mayor. Will you travel due north or somehow find your way to Mr Pokémon's house? Will you meet a wild pokémon, a NPC trainer or another player? This routes has it all but is but an obstacle before the real challenge in Violet City...

__________________

roxy ∙ jane ∙ dirk ∙ callieHope to me is all about believing in stuff.

(OOC: Yeah I realized I did that, and that update came as I was writing this post =P)

|Kinder| - Route 30
Every time Geoff entered a new Route, town, or city, the sights never ceased to amaze him. Looking at everything from a top-down perspective on his Gameboy just made perfect sense for him, but now he was starting at Route 30 from a first-person perspective. The cliffs that made for an easier exit from the top of the route were now tall ledges instead of a just a different tile. The small pools of water bounced the rays of sunshine from it's surface and reflected |Kinder|'s image back at him, but as far as Geoff was concerned that was his appearance for the time being. It was a sense of full immersion that he had never felt in a Pokémon game, which under normal circumstances he would love. In this case, he just wanted out. The one thing that seemed out of place was billowing dark clouds further out into the sky, which seemed odd, as nothing like that was ever present in any other game, but that didn't concern Geoff right now.

If playing these games had taught him anything, he knew that he needed to grind his Snorunt's level up. And in this case, he needed to do it safely, which meant sticking to wild Pidgey and wild Hoothoot to knock out with Powder Snow. Taking risks against anything that could really damage Snorunt, and by extension himself, was not worth it, especially since this route and Mr. Pokemon stood between him and getting his Pokégear.

"Ready Snorunt?"

"Sno!"

With Snorunts approval, Geoff started off into the thick grass that covered the beginning of the Route. Oddly, he made it through the first patch of grass without spotting any wild Pokémon. Uncommon, but not impossible Geoff figured. He made his way up the stairs in front of him and continued up the route. As always, past all the little lakes and ponds on his right, the fork in the road came. Just from past knowledge that the left entrance, although less populated, would be crawling with NPC trainers waiting for him to battle, and would take him to Route 31, and by extension, Violet City. But he wanted to take the path on the right, heavily covered in tall grass. Mr. Pokémon's house would be there, and he wanted that Pokégear.

Continuing on the right path, Geoff started to hear a rustling a few feet in front of him. Finally, Geoff thought. It was odd not even seeing a Pokémon on the route, not including the few Weedle and Caterpie he saw asleep in the trees above him. He cleared the grass in front of him with his hands, where he saw a Hoothoot trying to get it's feet uncaught from the grass. Sort of a sad sight, seeing a Hoothoot trapped on the ground and not able to get back into the sky. As much as Geoff knew he and Snorunt needed to train, taking on a helpless and defenseless Pokémon wasn't right with Geoff, he was raised better than that. Geoff walked right up to the Hoothoot and started prying at the grass stuck in its talons. Hoothoot was frightened by the random grip on its feet, and scratched Geoff's hand.

"What the heck! I'm just trying to help you!" Geoff shouted at the Hoothoot. He didn't mean to yell, but his hand was in pain. That's new, and experience of pain for Geoff. He figured that he didn't only have to look after his Pokémon's health now, but his own was now a factor. Just another thing to worry about.

"Hoot! Hoo hoo..." Hoothoot cried. It had a sad look on its face, like it didn't mean to hurt Geoff. It was just startled.

"It's okay," Geoff said. "It was an accident. Anyways I'm glad you're free, fly back to wherever you came from!"

Geoff continued down the path towards Mr. Pokémon's house. He didn't remember the path being this long, even proportionally between the two different iterations of the world. Every step he took, he kept hearing a rattling behind him. Every time he turned around, there was nothing there. He took one more step, and heard it again. Instantly he turned around, to see the same Hoothoot now floating up in front of his face and landing on his other shoulder, opposite to Snorunt. He knew it was an entirely different world, but could wild Pokémon actually be programmed to have this capability? Apparently so.

"Umm, do you want to join us?" Geoff asked the Hoothoot.

"Hoot! Hoo hoothoot!" It cried happily. Apparently so.

"Well if you want to join us, we do have to battle first , it's just how it works," Geoff explained.

Apparently that was all Hoothoot needed to hear, as it jumped eagerly back into the air and Tackled Snorunt off of Geoff's shoulder. Clearly it had some fight in it, which made Geoff smile. In this kind of situation, the passive-aggressive and shy Pokémon were not what he would want for his team. He needed some fighting motivation if he wanted to escape this world.

Snorunt hit the ground right on its butt, and it wasn't too happy with the sneak attack. Apparently that was reason enough to fire off a Powder Snow at the little bird without Geoff even ordering it. It concerned Geoff that Snorunt would just do something like that, but at the same time it would have been the same thing he would have commanded. Maybe it was just smart and knew what to do.

Hoothoot was hurt by the Ice-typed attack, but it wasn't down yet. It got back up and charged for another Tackle attack, but the Ice stuck in it's feathers were slowing it down. On Geoff's command, Snorunt dodged the blow and hit it with another Powder Snow. Hoothoot was knocked to the ground, and was struggling to get up.

Geoff, with fear of knocking it out, threw one of the Pokéballs Professor Elm had given him at Hoothoot to capture it. The ball hit Hoothoot and enveloped it in a red light, sucking it into the ball. It shoke once, twice, three times...and lay dormant. Geoff had made his first capture in this virtual world, and the Hoothoot was a good addition to his team. Geoff picked up the ball and continued onward, with Snorunt returned safely to it's Pokéball.

Fighting off a few Zubat and another Hoothoot with Snorunt's super effective Ice attacks, Geoff finally saw Mr. Pokémon's house in front of him. He stepped inside the house, and in front of him was the familiar NPC that he had spoken with numerous times before in his playthroughs of Pokémon Gold. Geoff initiated the dialogue with him, explaining the quest that the Mayor of Cherrygrove had given him.

"Ah yes, of course! I needed to make sure a trainer would take this egg back to her for me, as I didn't want it to be damaged!" Mr. Pokémon explained. It was just as Geoff figured, the same fetch quest the original game provided for. As Geoff accepted the quest line, Mr. Pokémon continued, "If you come back to see me after you deliver that egg, I'll have a nice surprise for you!"

Geoff had no idea what that meant, but if it was some sort of reward, he was all over it.

---

After taking the quick path over the short cliffs back to Cherrygrove City, Geoff returned to the Mayor's office, with the egg in his hands. Before he could get a word out to her, she took the egg from him and thanked him graciously. In return, she handed him over the Pokégear. It was clearly an upgraded one that Geoff didn't expect, already containing the phone and map, but what he was really most excited for was the headphones and the radio card that was already attached to it. Geoff graciously accepted, and returned to the Pokémon Center to heal his newly obtained Hoothoot.

"Okay. How'd you do?" Birdie inquired as Fara stepped into his line of vision.

“What do you think?” She held up two Pokéballs between her fingers in order to showcase her latest captures. Her two new additions would most certainly aid her in the inevitable defeat of Falkner.

Fara caught herself wondering how Birdie was going to attempt to fight the Gym Leader of Violet City. All the Pokémon he had at the moment couldn’t do anything more than normal damage against Flying types. All Fara had to do was send out Geodude, of course after training him on these wild Pokémon, and he would take care of those pesky birds. Behind Birdie Fara noticed that there was fire that was leaping from tree to tree. It would only delay her journey if she took the time to do anything about the fire. Also, it's not like she had any water type Pokemon that could assist her in putting it out, she thought it was best to avoid it. Though, Birdie seemed like too nice of a guy to not help out with a forest fire, which is why she couldn’t let him see it. She made herself smile wide and guided Birdie passed the visibility of the forest fire as if it wasn’t there. Next time she needed a look out she might as well leave Bandino because he would've done a better job than Birdie.

To be expected the duo ran into several Weedles and Bellsprouts but luckily Fara's Geodude had managed to defeat them in quite a hurry. The Bellsprouts caused quite a bit of trouble seeing as that was one of Geodude's main weaknesses, which lead to the decision to switch to Bandino when they encountered them. One thing Fara loved to do was take charge even though she was supposed to be play a part, Amell wasn't very good at acting and that translated to MAO. To be polite Fara gave Birdie a chance to challenge and win against a few wild Pokemon as if it proved that she could indeed share with others. Their footsteps stopped in front of the passageway that lead into Violet City where they faced their biggest opponent yet, Falkner. Apparently no one has made it passed Falkner without being overwhelmed by his power, well, at least to Fara's knowledge.

BiRDiE // Route 31
"Very nice," Birdie nodded at Fara's loot. Two more Pokémon? That was more than he had now. He wondered what they were for a moment, remembering what he had seen in the PokéDex. Geodudes, Dunsparces, Teddiursas and Zubats. Maybe Zara had caught a Zubat, like Todo? Whatever it was, if Fara decided to battle Birdie suddenly, he knew that he would most definitely lose. Fara seemed nice enough though. She wouldn't betray him, not when they were travelling together.

Birdie smiled as Fara led the way without saying anything else, walking through more grass. They encountered a few Pokémon here and there, Birdie getting to see one of Fara's new additions. A Geodude? That would be helpful against Falkner indeed. Having a Geodude would have been exceptionally helpful and as much as Birdie would have asked to turn around and go catch one himself, he didn't want to bother Fara too much, who seemed to be having enough fun trying to train her own Pokémon. They at last made it to the walk through and were so close to the next town. Birdie sighed, looking up at the building. He could see Sprout Tower over top of the passageway, the Japanese-style attraction looming ominously. If it was like the games, he should be able to breeze through it with flying types but what happens if it was different? Hopefully Fara would be able to back Birdie up.

"Ready to go to Violet City?"

"Yeah, sure," Birdie was about take his first steps to Violet City when an odd smell struck him. It was odd enough he could smell in this game, but odder still what he could smell. "Wait, can you smell that? Is someone burning something?"

Jercio rushed to his side of the field. He was pumped forhis first NPC battle. Even if these things were idiots in the games here theymay finally prove a challenge. Jercio sent out Yohi to lead the pack while Gregsent out a Sentret.

“Yep totally an NPC” Jercio muttered, “Yohi let’s show umwhat we got. Show him the trick shot first.”

Yohi nodded as he yipped in agreement. He rushed forward andappeared to be attempting a Karate Chop, but instead quickly swapped to a backhand that left the Sentret dazed for a moment.

“Follow up with a tackle.” Jercio ordered.

‘This would be so much easier if Tyrogue actually learnedsome fighting moves. Gah I’m terrible at picking starters.’ Jason thought.

Yohi meanwhile dutifully wrestled the Sentret to the ground,and let off one good punch before the Sentret used quick attack to free itselfand make a decently damaging attack with its tail. Tackle was Yohi’s onlyattack at this point and both trainer and pokemon understood that. The battlewent on in a similar manner due to that. Yohi would strike with tackle whilethe Sentret swapped between scratch and quick attack to deal some damage. Yohiwas much more trained though so the Sentret had to sumbit. Yohi took a beating,but statistically speaking was only just to half health.

The second pokemon was the one who gave Jercio a hard time.A Mareep was Greg’s back up plan. It too was lower leveled, but its range andability had Yohi at the disadvantage. Jercio also knew that Hurek had no chancedue to the typing. Yohi had to stick it out for the rest of this battle so thatWitor would we be capable of winning.

Yohi couldn’t even use fake out again, so he stuck with hisonly attack, and went all out. Yohi tackled the Mareep and pounded it over andover again. That move hit hard, but when Yohi tried to get back he found hislimbs stiff and nearly immovable. Static had done its job, and left Yohiincapable of attacking. It only took a couple of thundershocks before he wasout of the match.

“Sorry Yohi. Can’t plan for what we don’t see. Now then,Witor finish the job.” Jercio shouted sending out his Spinarak.

“Let’s slow things down.” Jercio ordered.

Witor hissed and chattered before launching a sticky stringall over the Mareep to restrict its movements. Even then it was able to attackwith thundershock from a long range. Witor scuttled around trying to dodge theattacks while firing off his own poison sting attacks. The needles keptstriking the Mareep and the thundershocks were hitting Witor, but it was allover when Witor was able to maneuver around the slow sheep, and get a criticalhit on the pokemon which did massive damage due to Witor’s sniper ability.

“And that is how you build a team.” Jercio said as Witor scurried to his side.

Jake♫ // |Kinder| @ Cherrygrove City

At the PokémonCenter, there is a girl who sits in one of the couches and steals glances at you as you heal your pokémon up. Not glances of interest really. Rather angry glances.

As you leave the PokémonCenter and go out onto the street, someone suddenly jumps you from behind. You stumble and can't get them off or get your pokémon to act to help you... but then the attacker suddenly runs off. Turning around, you see that it was the girl from inside the building. She runs north towards Route 30.

After only a short matter of time, you realize that your newly obtained PokéGear is gone. The angered girl... She must have stolen it!

OOC: You may design the girl and decide if she is a player or some kind of NPC thief, bugged or not. Note that you may also REFUSE this quest and carry on as if this text never happened!

Retro Bug // Fara O'Shay + Skymin // BiRDiE @ Unknown Shore

As the duo take their first steps over the digital border that separates Route 31 from Violet City, you experience your first major glitch in Monster Art Online. Before you can really understand what happened, it is not the street of Violet City that you put your front foot down on. You are now standing on a cliff, feeling the wind in your hair and smelling the salty sea air around you as you look down and hear waves crash against stone. Behind you, a thick forest begins, mixed with more cliffs and rocks. In the far distance to your right, a long beach can be seen and there also seem to be the silhouettes of buildings.

You have seemingly glitchfully been teleported to a place that definitively is not Violet City. To top it all off, there lies a POKéMON EGG on the cliff in front of the two of you, and it seems to be alone and abandoned. The egg is dark gray with a matt texture. What will Birdie and Fara do?

OOC: If you try to approach the beach or buildings, please end a post somewhere there and let me tell you what place it really is :> Also, you may certainly REFUSE this turn of events and simply keep posting as if it didn't happen.

__________________

roxy ∙ jane ∙ dirk ∙ callieHope to me is all about believing in stuff.

/Fel/ -Route 30-

Fel sighed looking at the pokeball he received from Mr.Pokemon as he walked towards the fire. He was somewhat irritated, and also a little confused, as to why he was given a Poliwag with only the move Bubble. He sighed a heavy and dramatic sigh, assuming that he had to grind his Poliwag to make her worth anything in terms of the fire. Her name was Aqua. It wasn't a name he was against, but it made him wonder if the organization knew anything about originality. That, or maybe they just named their pokemon after the jobs they were meant for, which, to Fel, seemed cruel. They may have just been data, just pieces of the game, but as far as Fel was concerned, the entire world of MAO was the "real world" and everyone active in it was not just a player, but a living being. Naming pokemon like that seemed...almost mechanical; it made him wonder more about the organization and what they...or it was like.

He noticed that things were getting progressively warmer and warmer, until he started to sweat. He removed himself from his thoughts for a moment to notice the fire. The tremendous fire. He'd underplayed how large the fire would be, and from what he could tell, the organization had, too. There was no way he could extinguish this on his own or with others. Not with Aqua at least. To prove this, he released Aqua and had it use Bubble on the fire. Surely enough, the fire made the attack dissipate rather early. Fel sighed again and returned Aqua. He scanned the fire and noticed quite a few people trying to extinguish it. Most of them were probably players and townspeople, the firefighters, if there were any, were probably inside the town.

What did catch his attention, was a cluster of people gathered around an area away from the city. They seemed to be putting out a rather small area of fire, but they seemed to still be having trouble. He ran over and asked, "Why are you guys over here?" he said, pointing to Cherrygrove City, "The main fire's over that way!"

"There's a little girl in this small cavern," a man with a wartortle said. "It has plant life, so it won't be long until it engulfs that cavern..."

"And the girl." Someone else added in, prompting a rather hostile look from the man with the wartortle.

Fel looked at the fire and then he looked back at those fighting the fire. He sighed for a third time, knowing what he'd have to do. He started to walk away, and then started running full tilt towards the fire. He was worried about whether it would kill him or not, but he was starting to get to the point where his interest in the organization was taking over any sense of value in the game and in his life. Not that he had much of the latter two, anyway. As he waded through the fire, what looked like red pixels leaked from his character, every part of his body was breaking, it seemed. Fel could not feel anything but heat, however. No pain. It was an intense heat, however, hotter than any anything he'd felt before.

Once he'd passed through the wall of fire, his sight adjusted to the darkness of the cavern. The girl was lying on the ground. She was blonde and wore a frilly dress. She seemed to be asleep, probably from crying and screaming so hard. He looked back to the fire, thinking if he could pass back through it, but his body was already far too worn to do so again. He looked the other way and noticed that the cavern was anything but "small" (it was a cavern after all). He picked the little girl up and looked to the fire, yelling, "I've got the girl, don't bother with the fire anymore! I'll find a way out!" Without waiting for responses, Fel started towards the depths of the cavern.

machomuu // Fel

When you walk with the girl through the darkness towards the depths of the Dark Cave, you suddenly see an opening. It seems like it wasn't impossible at all in this game to reach the other side of the cave without HMs, if you really tried!

Route 45/46

Route 45 and 46 go between Blackthorn City in the north and route 29 in the south. However, the way north is too steep and mountainous for you to be able to cross safely at this point in MAO. You can, however, travel south and reach the first route through a gate building.

The landscape is very rocky and it feels like you are going sideways down from a mountain, which you pretty much are. The route is also very dry, the most desert-like route found in Johto. At the junction where route 46 begins, there is a Pokémon Center with hot springs for weary travelers. There are also relatively many stones and items glimmering at you from various odd places in the route, such as stuck in trees or high up on cliffs. However, you lack the necessary skills and professions at this point to be able to extract or retrieve these items.

Special quest givers:

There are quest givers, but your pokémon are not nearly strong enough at this point to be able to finish the quests without whiting out. As such, the quest givers won't even give you any quests in this area.

Wild pokémon:

Can be found but are too strong for you
to capture/defeat at this point:

Fishing in ponds/rivers with the
Angler Profession:

__________________

roxy ∙ jane ∙ dirk ∙ callieHope to me is all about believing in stuff.

BiRDiE // ???
Birdie recieved no answer from her companion due to the fact when they stepped over the imaginary line into Violet City, they were met with not the expected traditional style Japanese city of Violet City, boasting popular areas such as Sprout Tower and the Violet City Pokémon gym, but a sudden gush of wind as they stood at the edge of a cliff.

"Whoa!" Birdie stepped back, his feet resting on the grassy cliff and not back on the tiled floor of the passageway. He pushed his glasses up his nose so they didn't blow away (they wouldn't, but it sure felt like it) and quickly scanned the area. Did they go back in time? Wait, Violet City wasn't anywhere near the bay, not as far as Sophie knew. There was a dense forest behind them and the wind up here no longer smelt like smoke, but of sea water. The waves could be heard from below, crashing on the cliff and a beach, as well as a small town could be seen in the distance. Whatever the case, this was definitely not Violet City.

"Where are...?" Birdie's eyes also caught something odd. In the grass, closer towards the edge of the cliff lay a large and curious stone. It wasn't far away and one step was enough to get close enough to touch it, which he did. It was smooth and grey, and when he picked it up and held it firmly in his hands, was not heavy at all. In fact, was it a stone? It felt and was shaped more like... an egg!

Aertio – Route 30, Jhoto

Supplies fully stocked and Growlithe at full health, Aertio headed out and onto Route Thirty. The sun now hung lower in the sky as the pair made their way up the route blazingly. With all the grass and bug type Pokemon showing up from between the branches and crawling through tall grass, Growlithe merely cast them aside hurling balls of Ember in their direction. If it wasn’t a game, the two would have had a trail of dead bodies rather than rapidly disappearing pixels behind them. Regardless, Aertio continued on, shouting in triumph as Growlithe downed yet another Ledyba here, Spinarak there. They were half way through the route and Growlithe was already up two levels, yet starting to get restless.

“Come one boy, let’s take a break.” Growlithe barked happily as Aertio lay his bag down on the soft grass next to the pristine lake. While in the game, they didn’t need to eat, but people ate purely out of custom and habit. Placing several pellets of PokeFood on the ground for Growlithe, Aertio helped himself to a single Rice Ball, munching on the compacted rice.

For all the hassle the game now put him in, it was only in this instance in which he sat down and had a look at the world he now resided in that he began to feel a pang of regret for not noticing this side of the game. Once finished, he fished for the Rod in his backpack, pulling it out and assembling it till the now sat in his lap.

“Shall we see what this does?” He asked the Growlithe who barked happily.

Not one usually patient enough, Aertio soon found that fishing in the game was a lot quicker than it had been back in the real world. Within moments he felt a tug at the lure and began pulling and reeling in his first catch. Flopping and splashing haphazardly, the Magikcarp would not let go of the line until Growlithe stepped in, biting the fish as his small teeth tried to penetrate it’s thick outer shell.

It only took a couple of bites before the red fish Pokemon soon disintegrated into a stream of pixels. Laughing in victory, Aertio again cast his hook into the pristine blue water again, waiting for the lure to bob in the water. Something definitely snagged when the lure went into the water suddenly, Aertio almost taken off of his feet. Reeling the catch in, Aertio was surprised to see, not a red Magicarp splash onto shore, but some blue-green frog-baby Pokemon.

“Growlithe, Bite!” He yelled as Growlithe surged forward, burying it’s jaw into the soft flesh of the tadpole Pokemon.

Angrily, the Poliway let loose a jet of bubbles, exploding into Grolithe’s eyes causing the dog Pokemon to let go yelping. “Ember” Aertio called, whooping as Grolithe buried the Poliwag in a conflagration of fire, but his victory was short lived when it emerged relatively unscathed and even angrier. Yet again it let loose a blast of bubbles, drenching Growlithe who seemed to be taking massive damage from it.

“Bite, Growlithe,” after learning from a valuable mistake, Aertio gave up on the thought of burning the Poliwag and, instead, decided to use bite to hopefully come out of this battle alive. Again and again, Aertio yelled for Growlithe to bite the Poliwag, while in response, it continued to soak Growlithe in layers of bubbles. The fight seemed to go neither way until Aertio saw Poliwag’s eyes glow as the Pokemon hypnotised his Growlithe.

“No!” Aertio yelled, but it was too late, Growlithe slumped to the ground, snoring loudly while the Poliwag jumped eratically, flailing in the air in some sort of victory dance. Grabbing an item from his bag, he tossed it at the Poliwag, intending to injure the Pokemon, hoping to give him some time to administer the Awakening to Growlithe.

In the background, Aertio heard a ‘click’ as he sprayed Growlithe first with an Awakening, then next with a Potion. Turning around, at first he thought the Poliwag had returned to the lake, but on closer inspection, where the Poliwag had stood was a small, round red ball. Picking it up, he soon recognised the Pokeball engraved with a small ‘A’ below its button; it was definitely his.

Pocketing the ball, he re-administered another Potion to Growlithe before they set out for the next leg of their journey up to Route 31 then across to Violet City.

Two trainers and a field full of grass and bug typed Pokemon later, Aertio found himself and Growlithe on Route 31, sky blackened by smoke and fire dancing on the treetops in the wind. He watched up ahead as another Player walked through the conflagration and into the cave beyond. Without thinking, Aertio ran forward, following the other Player into the darkness of the cave beyond. Amongst the fluttering and screeching of Zubat and rolling Geodude, he could vaguely hear a pair of voices ahead.

On the route, she continued to walk, rushing, turning her back on where she was supposed to be. She had thought she had heard Krissu for a moment. Then Ange dismissed the idea. Why would Krissu come after her? She didn’t want her there... and Ange was ashamed to be around her. She would prove to Krissu that she could help her too. No matter what it took from her.

“Are you sure that’s good for her?”

“Eh?” Ange turned her head reflexively, trying to locate the noise via her ears. Sia gurgled at this and spoke again.

“Are you sure it was good for her that you left?” Sia wasn’t exactly sure if his thinking was sound enough for her to understand or not. He was a Pokemon after all and he had heard Krissu’s thoughts and feelings for a moment there. It had hurt her, had torn her very deeply in a still scabbing wound. “She wanted to keep you safe.”

Ange thought about this, lifting her nose toward the air. The air was dry for some reason, hot, acrid. She thought about it further. “She wanted to keep me safe? Shouldn’t I learn how to keep myself safe? I have you too... and... I had Kii...” She hadn’t wanted to leave Kii behind. However, he had seemed happy there. He had seemed to be enjoying himself. So... it wasn’t fair for her to take him away from a place where he could be happy.

Sia gurgled, floating around her head and looking around. Unlike her, Solosis had no nose. However, the air seemed a little harder to float in than usual. She would like to know why at the very least. “She was strong, though. She wanted to keep you safe so you could eventually be strong.”

“...” Ange really was confused. This sort of thing was out of her league on understanding. She really wanted to know why though. It didn’t feel like Krissu was protecting her because she was Ange and she wanted to help. She didn’t understand at all. “Ah... I...” Now she was horribly confused. Was leaving the right thing after all? Had she just pointlessly hurt a new friend?

The view of the city was astonishing to Fara as she hadn't expected the city to look this wonderful. Fara blinked and when she opened her eyes she noticed that they were no longer in Violet City... What was going on? She wasn't sure if this was some new addition to the game because this most certainly didn't happen when Amell played SoulSilver. Birdie and herself were now standing on a cliff, a cliff that seemed to be nowhere near Violet City. Fara peered below only to see that their were strong waves crashing into the cliff that they were now standing on.

Around them were different landscapes, a beach in one direction while a forest type place in another. Fara racked her mind, she wanted to know how they had gotten here and when could they get back to Violet City. She had to be the first to beat Faulkner, if she let someone else do it they would receive all the credit and Fara would get none. Plus, people were probably forgetting about The Slayer, she needed to plant rumors in the players minds once more. She turned around to speak to Birdie after hearing his question when she saw what he held in his hand, a PokeEgg! How did Birdie get that before she did? No matter, she'd simply take it.

"Wow, let me see!" Instead of waiting for her partner to hand over the gray egg Fara tugged it out of his hands, he didn't seem to want to let go. That was a problem but she would do something about that because in the end the egg would be hers no matter what. "I say we go to the beach, there seems to be at least buildings!"

Without waiting another moment Fara twirled around and headed toward the beach with the PokeEgg in her hands. Her head started to fill with thoughts on what exactly this egg contained, what if it was something bad? This game had just taken them to some uncharted place that wasn't, to Amell's recollection of the Johto region, in the actual games. Also, if they ended up at the beach Fara would be given the chance to catch some water type Pokemon that she wanted to round out her team. Playfully she began tossing the egg up and down, a little higher each time, what would Birdie do if she pretended to drop it? She assured herself that it would be quite the reaction to see and wanted to test it out at a later date.

BiRDiE // ???
Fara seemed to have grown into a habit of not answering any of Birdie's perfectly reasonable questions, though that might be because she didn't know. When she turned to face him, her eyes went straight to his hands. Or more specifically, the egg in his hands.

"Wow, let me see!" she didn't let him pass it to her, instead yanking it out of his hands. Birdie was reluctant but released his grip. If she wanted to see, why didn't she just look? He made a face but remained silent. The Sophie inside Birdie felt uncomfortable with how Fara seemed to hold it. Maybe it was her maternal instincts or maybe it was because he felt that because a more selfish reason of 'finders keepers'. "I say we go to the beach, there seems to be at least buildings!"

"I guess," he said, following her down, keeping his eyes at his feet (and precariously at the edge of the cliff). Would the beach have water type Pokémon? If Sophie could recall from the games correctly, only deep sand held Pokémon, and even then, they were Ground types. If they wanted Water types, they would need to go into the water. Birdie hadn't tried that as part of the game mechanics yet, even though he had spent a week in Cherrygrove, which was right next to the water. Could players swim?

His eyes raised from his shoes as they crunched uncomfortably in the sand to his companion, whose actions made his stomach lurch almost immediately. Wh-what was she doing!? What if the egg was important?! He opened his mouth and closed it a few times, finding words to tell her to kindly stop. Then, she started tossing it higher. Instintively, Birdie rushed forward and grabbed the egg in midair before Fara could catch it again.

"Wh-what are you doing!?" Birdie held the egg close to his chest. It wasn't damaged in the slightest, but what if she dropped it? The sand is soft but who knew how fragile these eggs were. What if premature Pokémon eggs were toxic and killed them both? What if it had some kind of reviving item inside it? What if it was the key to winning the game? "What if this is important? There might be life in here. You might have broken it..."

Retro Bug // Fara O'Shay + Skymin // BiRDiE @ Unknown Shore

"Halt!" a voice suddenly calls out to Fara and Birdie. Someone is running towards them in the sand, seemingly coming from the buildings in the distance. He is rather strangely dressed, with a purple suit and a white sort of mantle over his back... Don't the players recognize him from somewhere? He throws a pokéball in front of himself and an Electrode materializes halfway to the two players.

"Where did you find that pokémon egg?" the man asks, coming to a stop at a distance of half a gym arena from Fara and Birdie. "I claim it! I'm collecting pokémon, and there is a pokémon in there for sure! Give it to me, or battle me for it!"

The man looks rather flustered. Electrode's body sparkled with electric elemental energy, making fine sand fly up around it, and its eyes narrowed while its mouth smiled wider. How will Fara and Birdie react?

__________________

roxy ∙ jane ∙ dirk ∙ callieHope to me is all about believing in stuff.

After getting his Pokémon back from Nurse Joy, Geoff did what he finally longed to do: He pulled out his new Pokégear, turned on the radio, and kicked back with some music. In a game that has become about survival, Geoff wouldn't normally do a side-quest like this, but when it involved music, it was completely necessary. He could let time pass by for who-knows-how-long listening to music, and disturbing him while he was listening was a hard task to accomplish.

As Geoff was listening he turned his attention to a girl sitting on a couch across the room from him. He wasn't sure if she was an NPC or not, but he was receiving dirty glances from her. Although she was sitting she seemed relatively short, and probably around 14 or 15 years old. She had a salmon colored blouse on, with a red skirt, and from his judgement 3 inch high heels. Probably not the best footwear for travelling the region, so it made no sense that it could be an actual player. Her green eyes were piercing Geoff's as he looked over to her, and it just seemed cold.

He couldn't take being glared at any longer, he had to get back out into the field and get to Violet City. Sitting here wasn't going to be of any help, and he could listen to music as he walked anyways. He made his way back to the entrance of Route 30, and before he could start back out there, he felt a sharp, shooting pain in his ears.

"OWWW!!" Geoff screamed. Someone ripped the headphones out of his ears. As he turned around to see who did it, there was no one there. "What the hell, who could have --" Geoff started, but as he turned back forward he saw that girl from the Pokémon Center, only now she had Geoff's Pokégear in hand as she ran onto Route 30! "Get back here!" Geoff screamed, but to no avail. His only option was to chase after her.

Thank for Geoff, those high heel were slowing her down, so he could catch up quickly. They reached the fork in the road, where he grabbed her shoulder and turned her around. She still had that glare in her eye, and Geoff didn't like it. He looked her up and down, and realized that she was definitely older than he perceived; at least 16 years old, maybe even 17 or 18.

"Let go of me!" she yelled at him. "This belongs to me now!"

"And you think I'm going to just let you steal the ONE thing in this game that makes me happy? I don't think so," Geoff replied. At this point he knew where this was going, and for her sake he hoped that she was an NPC character. The only thing was, Geoff couldn't handle taking someone else's life, even if it meant him living. No turning on the HUD he supposed, he couldn't deal with the guilt if she really was real.

"Alright |Kinder|, I, Felicity, challenge you!" she ordered as she threw a Pokéball. When the white light finally materialized, a little green and yellow monkey materialized from the ball. "Alright, I'm ready with Pansage, what do you have to offer me?"

Geoff looked at his two Pokéballs. Both Hoothoot and Snorunt would do well here, but Hoothoot would resist any potential grass-typed attacks that the grass monkey had. "Alright, let's go Hoothoot!" Geoff cried as he threw Hoothoot's Pokéball into the air. As Hoothoot emerged, it u-turned onto Geoff's shoulder, getting a good view of his opponent.

"Hoot! Hoo Hoo!" Hoothoot cried. Geoff could see the excitement in his eyes, and he knew he made a good choice, even if he hadn't battled with him yet. He was about to give him a little pep talk for his first battle, but apparently Felicity had other things in mind.

"Vine Whip, and draw it close to you!" she ordered Pansage. It obliged, and vines were quickly wrapped around Hoothoot, and it was dragged off of Geoff's shoulder. It kept getting pulled closer and closer, when Geoff had an idea.

"Use that momentum! Charge towards it using your Tackle attack!" Hoothoot nodded, and as Pansage pulled it closer, Hoothoot used it's own force on it, making him charge at Pansage much faster than it was expecting. The look of surprise popped up in it's eyes, and Hoothoot hit it right in the gut with his Tackle. Hoothoot was released from the vines as Pansaged tumbled over backwards, but it was quickly back up on its feet.

Felicity didn't look happy, as she stomped on the ground and broke her right heel. "Look what you made me do! This is not okay! Pansage, Lick that stupid bird!"

This made Geoff smirk. He knew exactly what was going to come of that attack, although she clearly didn't. He decided to do something that both Hoothoot and Felicity were more than likely to question, but he was fully confident. "Hoothoot, just hold your ground."

Hoothoot turned his head around, giving Geoff questioning eyes. "Hoot?" he exclaimed in a worried tone, but Geoff just nodded, and Hoothoot trusted him. Pansage crept closer and closer, and opened his mouth wide for it's Lick attack. It's tongue made direct contact with Hoothoot, but as expected, Geoff smirked and was ready for his next move.

"Ghost moves don't work on a part normal-type like Hoothoot here!" He explained. "Now Hoothoot, use a Peck attack on its tongue while it's still out of it's mouth!"

"Hoo hoo!" Hoothoot replied as it started Pecking away at the poor Pansage. Flying-typed moves are already super-effective on grass types, but doing the attack on its tongue was almost adding insult to injury.

"Scratch!" Felicity called out. Geoff was expecting Pansage to be stuck where it was, but it's claws were raised up into the air and it slashed Hoothoot right across the face, knocking it backwards into a nearby tree. It was an unexpected counter-attack, but Geoff should have realized it could do something when the only thing he was attacking was the Pansage's tongue.

"Are you okay Hoothoot?" Geoff asked, as Hoothoot pulled itself back onto one foot to stand ready for another round of attacks. "Hoot!" he replied, and Geoff knew it was going to be okay. That Pansage had taken more blows than Hoothoot had, and it was looking tired, as it was breathing heavily as it was hunched over.

Geoff looked over to Felicity, as he knew this battle was coming to an end. He noticed that on her side she had more Pokéballs, which meant that knocking out Pansage wouldn't mean her whiting out if she was a real person. It was the one inevitability that had to happen at some point, but Geoff didn't want to deal with it now.

"How about this --" He started. "Winner of the battle between Hoothoot and Pansage gets the Pokégear, and then it's over. That way no one whites out."

Felicity's eyes changed suddenly. Instead of being that glare that never left her eyes as she battle fiercely, it turned to a calmer, almost more understanding look. At this point, Geoff knew, even without turning on his HUD, that she had to be real. An NPC wouldn't flinch at that offer, as losing didn't have any real implications for them. "Deal. Now Pansage Vine Whip!"

Geoff was almost lost in the moment, but the battle call brought him right back in. "Dodge it in the air Hoothoot, then charge with Tackle!" Hoothoot obeyed swiftly, flying in the air over the vine's that were extending from Pansage, and charged it head-on, knocking it into the road sign at the fork to Mr. Pokémon's house. Pansage was down for the count, and both Geoff and Felicity knew it.

"Alright, you win," Felicity stated as she returned Pansage to it's Pokéball. She walked over to Geoff with the Pokégear in hand, and returned it to him. "I'm sorry I took it in the first place, I was upset when I returned the egg to the Mayor I didn't receive the Pokégear. I guess I had to talk to her first to receive it, and I just really wanted one."

Geoff sympathized with her. He knew the feeling of wanting the same thing so bad, but he got lucky in getting the quest first, and when he did he was a bulldozer getting it. "It's okay, I was the same way when I got the quest in the first place. We can listen to it for awhile if you want to?"

Felicity nodded, and the two of them sat down at the base of a tree listening to whatever stations they could find, with Hoothoot perched above them on a branch. They talked about music for a good hour, both the music that appeared in the game, and the music in the real world. They didn't share a large amount of overlapping interests, but artists like Jason Mraz were common ground for the two of them.

After the hour Felicity stood back up, breaking the heel on her left shoe on purpose, and laughed. "Might as well be even, right?" Geoff chuckled at this, and nodded in agreement. "By the way, my real name is Felicity too, what about you?"

"I'm Geoff. Being called |Kinder| is still kind of weird to me, but I guess I should get used to it since that's all people really see unless they get to know each other like we are."

"Well Geoff, this is farewell for now. But I'm going to see you again," Felicity said with a smile as she ran off back to Cherrygrove City to heal Pansage.

Geoff didn't have time to reply, but he had a smile on his face. It was nice having human contact again after all this time. He was sure should would pop back up somewhere, but who knows how soon? He watched her run into the distance until her figure disappeared into the horizon, and Geoff made his way back foward, with Hoothoot sitting back on his shoulder again.

"You know, if we're going to spend this much time together you should probably have a name," He started. "Then again, so should Snorunt." As Geoff pondered names, one obvious one came for Hoothoot. "Alright, you're going to be called Gaebora. How does that sound to you?" Geoff asked the little owl, who chirped happily at the name. He guessed it was a keeper. He couldn't figure out one for Snorunt yet, but he had an entire journey to do so.

Continuing down Route 30 using the left path, he expected to see the route riddled with a few trainers like in Gold and Silver, but there was nothing there. Then he noticed smoke billowing in the clouds above him, and as he got closer to the entrance of Route 31, and entire fire.

V I K I N G★ Route 29Victors entry into the world of Monster Art Online was just as amazing as he had wished for it to be. He met up with three of his online friends, or their avatars of course, and together they went to get their starter pokémon in the lab of New Bark Town. They spent several hours with just playing with their pokémon and roleplaying for a bit, pretending to really be pokémon trainers. Then the lockdown happened.

The next week, the quartet were one of the groups who didn't dare to venture out from the safety of New Bark. They stayed there and only occasionally went to Route 29 to carefully train against wild pokémon. Aside from the cool looking but pretty silly Viking, who was Victor's avatar, there were three more avatars in their group of friends. One was Fraud, a short female avatar with dark skin and a rough ponytail who always wore a dissatisfied look on her face. One was Korm, an average cheerful boy who would never hurt a fly. One was Melkor, a tall, bulky male avatar who looked like he could get even the laziest troops to mobilize with determination in their hearts. He was that kind of guy too, who could inspire and reassure people easily with his warm, trusty ways.

On day 5, the quartet decided to travel to Cherrygrove City after all. Nothing had changed since the lockdown; there had been no news or signs from the outside world. Melkor decided that they needed to take action and do their part of the responsibility that every capable player now shared: to beat the game and help others log out. It was the only humane thing to do.

They had reached the center of Route 29 and Viking couldn't help admiring the scenery around them. Korm agreed. It was all very realistic and beautiful and as the sun set, they could even see Hoothoot beginning to fly around them. Korm joked that he'd defeat some and steal their eggs for breakfast for them. He knew very well that the game's mechanics wouldn't allow that though. Hoothoot didn't lay eggs like that here. If they ever did.

He went out and battled some Hoothoot though, in the company of Fraud, while Melkor and Viking stayed by a campfire they had lit. They had no sleeping bags or anything to spend the night in, but they figured it wouldn't do them much harm to just sleep in the soft grass. They were avatars, not 100% realistic human beings after all.

Two screams were heard that night on Route 29. Only one person came running back to the campfire. Fraud told them with shuddering voice that a NPC trainer had come out all of a sudden and challenged Korm, even though he only meant to train subtly against wild, weak Hoothoot. But he accepted, even though MAO actually gave players the choice to reject NPC challenges at certain times, this early route being one of those times. The NPC had defeated Korm's only pokémon thanks to a lucky critical strike. Korm had whited out and the avatar had shattered before Fraud's eyes.

The remaining trio didn't sleep at all that night, they just lay by the fire in silence, mourning the supposed death of their long time online friend Konrad Sparg, and trying to get over the shock of the brutal reality that the lockdown brought. The next day, Fraud and Melkor argued about going onward to Cherrygrove or back to New Bark. Melkor wanted to push forward, meaning that they had to fight on and strengthen themselves to keep this from happening to more people, but Fraud meant that they had to lay low and hide because the stupid, brave people could do that job if they wanted to while they waited and survived. The fight went on for the whole sixth day of MAO, until a confused and conflicted Viking eventually took Melkor's side. The group set off towards Cherrygrove in the afternoon.

"I'm hungry."

"Actually, you are not hungry. You only believe that you are because your mind thinks that it is time to eat something. The game doesn't make you feel hunger, or sleep for that matter, because-"

"Oh my god, Victor, I KNOW!" Fraud gritted her teeth and walked faster to get away from the babbling inferno that constituted the youngest member of their former quartet.

"It's Viking, actually!" Viking corrected her, jumping over a branch laying on the road as he hurried to catch up with her again.

"And I'm Fraud. Sure."

"Yes! In MAO, you are. These are our new identities and I believe that if we are going to get out of this with our sanity intact, we should be our avatars in here and resume our 'real' identities once we get back to the real world. Otherwise we might confuse things and-"

Fraud was about to turn around and strangle him or something when Melkor raised a hand in front of her face, stopping her. "Look," he said. "Wild pokémon."

"Where!" Viking exclaimed and moved past them both to see where the grown avatar was looking. In the grass beside the road in the evening sunlight, a Jigglypuff marched out and blinked up at them. "AH! DON'T GET LULLED BY ITS DECEPTIVELY INNOCENT LOOK!" Viking exclaimed and held his arms out as if to protect the two behind him.

Fraud sighed. "You should battle this one to toughen your pokémon up," she just said, arms crossed.

"My pokémon-"

"I agree. We'll watch from here and intervene if necessary," Melkor said with a smile and sat down on a rock beside the road, arms crossed as well.

"What... But..." Viking glanced at the Jigglypuff and took up his only filled up pokéball. Inside was Charmander.

"Don't come with 'she's a girl' again," Fraud called from her position in the grass just below Melkor's rock. "I'm a girl too and you don't get awkward around me! Not more than usual, I mean."

"But you are a boy in real life and I've known you for long! I don't even think of you as a girl here."

Fraud's face turned narrow and she didn't even dignify that with a response other than turning her head away in disgust. The Jigglypuff moved a bit closer to Viking, making him stumble backwards a bit. "Is this a girl or guy?" he asked the other trainers hastily.

"Capture it and have a look?" Melkor suggested, still smiling calmly.

Viking swallowed hard and pushed a few loose strands of his white dreadlocks back behind the green headband. Alright. He would do this. He would battle a cute looking little monster ball with a... a girl pokémon.

"Charmander, go!" he called out and sent out his starter from her confines. Through a flash of white light, the pokémon materialized as a lizard on the sandy ground in front of Jigglypuff. She growled energetically and blinked with her large, blue eyes. Then she smiled tauntingly at her opponent, signaling with a thumbs up to her trainer that she was ready to battle.

"Uh... So, fine evening, huh, Charmander?" said Viking, scratching the back of his head and not even looking straight at her. "I mean, uh. I don't mean to push you around. You look kind of nice today. I mean, uh, I..."

The lizard lowered her ready arms and turned to look at him with a "are you ****ing kidding me"-look. Jigglypuff leaned to the side to glance at him as well. Fraud couldn't help laughing even though she was actually a bit mad with him for being this silly over a female pokémon - she didn't even LOOK girly! Melkor sighed.

Thankfully, this Charmander girl was quite the patient one and a battle did commence before Jigglypuff had run away. After some Scratches and Embers along with Viking falling asleep from Jigglypuff's Sing attack and having to be forcefully awakened by Fraud in the middle of it all, the balloon pokémon was actually captured inside an empty pokéball and fastened next to Charmander's pokéball at Viking's belt. And thankfully for him, Jigglypuff was male. The white haired avatar shared a rather shy high five with his Charmander, who patted his knee appreciatively before going back inside her pokéball again and let him let out whatever amount of breath he had been holding during their interaction.

After this episode, Fraud found no words to express how much she detested Viking's flaw. Melkor summarized it well: "You need to train in more ways than one, pal."

__________________

roxy ∙ jane ∙ dirk ∙ callieHope to me is all about believing in stuff.

"Lovely... I wish," the trainer mutters. "Haven't you seen the fire?" She gestures behind Lux, hoping that you'll notice the orange glow in the sky and the trees a little ways away that are strangely enough on fire.

"Oh... the fire?" Lux asked, as she looked behind her. Yup. There was definitely a fire. "Ohhh that. You know, I was wondering why it was so hot and... firey, y'know? So, um, what are you doing here, anyway? I don't see much people comin' through here!"

"I was going to scout out the cave since I usually skipped it in the old games... But MAO is so very different," the trainer says, as her gaze floats into the darkness behind you. "Is there really impenetrable darkness in there? Do you really have to use FLASH to be able to get around?"

"Nope! It is A-OK in there!" Lux replied. "I caught a Geodude in there, too! Well, I mean, maybe the only thing weird about that cave is that it forces you to rhyme, you know? Yup, rhyming... and you don't want to screw up your timing... OH WAIT IT DID IT AGAIN!! See? So, are ya goin' on in there? Or... hey wait! Who are ya anyway?"

"One question at a time!" the young trainer answered. "I'm Krissu, and I'm a pokemon trainer, like yourself. I assume that you are a player yourself?"

"You got it!" replied Lux. "I'm the super-magica-kawaii-desu Lux! And... this introduction would be more awesome if there was fireworks!"

"I see," replied Krissu. "Well, anyway, I don't want to hold up anymore of your time, so, you should get away from here as fast as you can before the fire gets worse."

"Oh, hey yeah!" replied Lux. "I'm going to Violet City! So... what are you going to do here?"

"I'm going inside, of course," replied Krissu. "You know, the key to try and complete this game is to try and have as many pokemon partners as you can. It'll reduce your risk of losing."

"Naaaaah!" Lux disagreed. "I think the fun thing about this game is to try and win with your bestest of friends and favorites, y'know? Growlithe has always been my favourite pokemon, and I did always like to have a Pidgey and a Geodude! They are all sorts of fun!"

"I don't think you understand the seriousness of our situation..." Krissu explained. "However, if that's how you feel, far from me to stop you." Krissu then turned away from Lux to head towards the nearby cave. "Well, whatever you decide to do, I do hope I see you again. Take care."

"Byyyyyye!" Lux said as she waved goodbye to the young trainer. "See ya again!"

Cherrygrove City was much larger than in the gameboy games, but it was still clear that there should be even larger cities in MAO. Yet, most players lingered here, even though teams or solo players set off every day to try and reach Violet City and the first gym leader. Rumors had it, and the digital news shown in PokémonCenters daily showed, that Violet City had many more opportunities to grow stronger and learn things than Cherrygrove had. There were just the long, troubling areas called Route 30 and Route 31 that made things difficult. In the future, when people had pokémon on higher levels, they would probably laugh looking back at the difficulties player had now. But at the moment, people still died in those routes.

Viking did not want to die.

The trio of him, Melkor and Fraud had been spending one night in Cherrygrove City and it was currently morning. Viking had hardly left the PokémonCenter at all. Good news were that he was beginning to warm up towards Charmander since Fraud had forced him to keep her out of her pokéball ever since they arrived in town, and that Jigglypuff turned out to be quite the jolly character. Bad news were perhaps that Viking was becoming increasingly aware of that Fraud was looking like a girl now, which made him uneasy around her instead of Charmander.

Somewhere before noon, when Fraud and Viking had been sitting in the PokémonCenter for hours doing nothing more than flipping through their inventories and memorizing attacks and stuff about their pokémon in the in-game menus, Melkor entered and marched up to them with a brisk smile.

"I've been scouting a little and talked to people. There are a lot of players here who partake in practice battles, where you never use all of your pokémon so you can't white out. Let's do that to get stronger!" He held up a clenched fist determinedly as he spoke.

Viking and Fraud threw a glance at one another and then looked back at Melkor. It wasn't like they could refuse when he looked like that.

__________________

roxy ∙ jane ∙ dirk ∙ callieHope to me is all about believing in stuff.

"What if this is important? There might be life in here. You might have broken it..." Birdie whined as he snatched Fara's egg out of midair before she had a chance to catch it once more.

Fara couldn't help but have a fit of laughter, even to the point where she bent over while she hugged her sides, while looking at Birdie's face. He was concern over a single PokeEgg was just too much for her, they hadn't even beaten the first gym leader, why on earth would the game give them something of such importance now, of all times? The impressive thing was that he actually took the egg from her, Fara wasn't the least bit worried because it was her egg no matter who held it now.

"Good idea, hold my egg for me, you're such a gentlemen," Her voice sounded sincere as she delivered her message as she continued to walk after her momentary stop.

"Halt!" A called out voice, which startled Fara.

Fara swung her head around to see a silhouette of a man running across the sand toward the duo. Instinctively Fara walked backwards toward Birdie and stood in front of him as if she were a guard that would protect him from whatever this mysterious wo/man wanted. She wasn't sure if it was a NPC or not and Fara didn't want to risk the chance of it being a true threat. When the man came closer Amell recognized that character from someone, Crystal, but didn't exactly remember what importance he had in the game or what his name was in the game.

"Where did you find that pokémon egg?" After the man spoke Fara noticed the gym arena that was in front of them, how very convenient that just happened to be there. "I claim it! I'm collecting pokémon, and there is a pokémon in there for sure! Give it to me, or battle me for it!"

"Birdie, listen to me closely," Whispered Fara to her companion she didn't want to risk the purple suit guy listening to their conversation. At this point Fara's face had turned complelely solemn, she wasn't going to lose her egg to any Trainer/NPC in this game. The only thing is that Birdie could wander off and find himself back in Violet City without her or worse someone else in the game and what if she never saw him again? "You are to flee, go towards the building, anywhere but here. I'll stall this guy. Now, go!"

"B-but--" Birdie exchanged looks with both Fara and the purple clad gentleman, who Sophie recognised very much so. Being a Pokémon fanatic, she knew this was rare Pokémon hunter and Suicune lover, Eusine. As far as she remembered, he was stupid, but determined. He felt his heart jump in his chest and started to step back towards the way they came.

"You want to know what I collect?" Fara smirked at her opponent, all she had was a Geodude that would help her against his Electrode and who else knew what other Pokemon he had inside of that suit. "Nothing, because that's what people leave when they're whited-out!"

The purple clad man's face grew frustrated. "But what will you do if I do... THIS!" he said and suddenly called out a second pokémon, effectively making it a double battle and forcing either Fara to release a second pokémon or Birdie to join in a tag battle. The second pokémon was a Girafarig who materalized right next to Electrode and let out a rather nasty howl. How do giraffes even sound? Certainly not like this.

At the sight of a second Pokémon, Birdie stopped dead. What would happen if... they were stronger than Fara thought? Sure, she had three Pokémon now but they were still all very young. Swallowing hard, he trudged back, holding the egg tightly to his chest. With his other hand, he tugged at Todo's PokéBall and held it in his hand. He also had his Berry Brewing (if only he had a bottle to make that dumb potion) and the healing berries the Alchemist had given him earlier.

He would not let his friend risk her life like this. Plus, he felt a little bit sick of being useless.

"Please Fara, let me help," he said, holding up his PokéBall.

When Birdie did that, Eusine's face suddenly lost its frustrated flavor and turned bleak. "Ah! You are too strong for me!" he exclaimed and fell down on his knees in the sand all of a sudden, almost sobbing. His Electrode and Girafarig turned around to look at him, Electrode with a face of slight disgust and Girafarig with a look of pity.

"I should have known this act of threatening would be futile. Forgive me, my friends," he said, turning to his pokémon with a snot hanging from his nose. He looked rather devastated now.

"Of course it was!" Her voice filled with false confidence that Girafarig had her just a tiny bit worried. Fara arched her left eyebrow at the man, what was going on here?

"Uh... You see..." he then continued, after having blown his nose into his mantle, "Trainers end up here now and then. And all of the seem to find an egg. And I am a pokémon collector. Pokémon eggs are precious to me. I cannot completely explain why... But I just need to try and get my hands on them. But I don't want to battle you because something tells me it will be awful. I am just so... So..." Electrode rolls over to Eusine and nudges him to get up as he once again blows his nose into the before-white mantle. "Thank you," the man says hastily to the pokémon.

"So lame?" Fara offered up. Here she thought that she was actually going to experience a Trainer battle. She grabbed onto Birdie's arm and started to walk toward the buildings they had previously seen. Somehow there had to be a way back to Violet City so that they could challenge Faulkner, well, Fara could she wasn't quite sure what Birdie was going to do. This Eusine mentioned something about Trainers ending up here, perhaps he knew where they were and how to get back to Violet City. "Anyway, we'll be on our way, but you can tell me where we are?"

Eusine seemed to have finished sobbing for now he stood straight up with only a little sigh coming from him.

"Yes, I can because I am allowed to be here while you are just some players who ended up here prematurely." Way to break the 4th wall, Eusine? "You are on the coast just north of Cianwood City."

He returned the Girafarig and the battle layout changed back into a single battle with just his Electrode being called forth. That is, if anyone should bother looking in menus while battling. But no one in MAO really does since voice commands are implemented well enough to make it feel like the players really are authentic pokémon trainers in a living world.

The purple man continues in a muttering voice. "But I am still an artificial Game Master who has decency enough to teleport you back to where you should be instead of letting you run along here."

His tone got more serious, but his face still wore a slightly disappointed look. His craze for rare pokémon seemed to extend to more than just Suicune in this game. He seemed to pull up some kind of menu in front of him, but it was invisible to Fara and Birdie... Only one kind of menu in this game is completely invisible, while normal menus can just blur out information for onlookers. A GM menu!

Just like the one that professor Elm back in New Bark Town could not manage to bring up, leading to his frustration over not being able to help players after the lockdown.

Before Birdie or Fara could do anything more, Eusine had clicked on something in the menu. The environment changed. The sounds of the ocean and the strong seaside sun disappeared. They were back in Violet City, right in the spot where their foot should have landed in the step that glitched them away in the first place.

/Fel/ -Route 30-

Fel started to regret not running through the flames as he progressed through the cave. It was so dark that he couldn't even see things that were right in front of him. He held the little girl close to him so as to protect her from the many impacts with the walls. Eventually, he stopped feeling around and kept his body against the walls exclusively, as that proved to be the least painful and most efficient way to go about navigating such a dark space.
Eventually he saw a light emanating from the darkness; it was as if there was an angel reaching down to him from the heavens. Or not. Regardless, he sprinted towards the light and entered the new landscape.

He wanted to treasure his triumph, but he had little time to do so. Almost immediately a rock came down in front of him. Next, an outline of hands shown on the front...or rather, the side that Fel was looking at, and then, like a rusty gundam activating for the first time in years, the golem slowly revealed its true form

Geodude

It didn't seem like anything Fel couldn't handle, but then again, Fel had never played pokemon before. Well, he had, he used to play all the time with his brother when he was younger. Red and Blue versions were the ones he played, though they were a distant memory now; he hardly even remembered the specific pokemon.

He struggled to pull out his Blitzle, but then, for some reason, he stopped himself. He had the feeling that he should use his Poliwag, if only because it made a little bit more sense. He let out his Poliwag and immediately ordered it to use Bubble. The Poliwag did so and the Geodude stirred and writhed in pain. He immediately took advantage of the situation and sent out a pokeball, which hit the rock pokemon.

@ Everyone

In all the Pokémon Centers across Johto, and on every PokéGear where trainers can read updated server news, an interesting offer comes up.

There is a player in Violet City called Melkor who says that he has experienced several very strange bugs and glitches to MAO. There is something wrong with the game, besides it trying to kill them and not letting them log out. And he is determined to find a way to exploit these bugs to win the game more easily.

His main point is that players have tried going solo for too long now. They need to start working together in a more organized way. He is calling any trainer who has experienced a glitch of some kind to join him in the front yard of the Sprout Tower at noon tomorrow (tuesday IC). Trainers who have not experienced glitches or bugs but feel confident that their skills might help are also welcome.

He is going to form a guild. A guild of pokémon trainers. Together, they will train and help each other traverse the routes and defeat the gym leaders and villains on their way.

Melkor has two trusted friends with him on this idea already. One is called Viking and is a rather awkward guy, the other is called Fraud and is a rather bitter girl. Still, Melker's friendly and confident persona should make up for them.

Miss Doronjo // Luxanna + Fuyu // Ange Lumis + Jake♫ // |Kinder|

As if right on cue, glitches befall some of those in Route 31 who have not yet seen any...

Under the feet of Lux, something suddenly starts trembling. The ground erupts and a pokémon climbs up. It looks angered and confused and it is clear that it should not be there. If you have played a pokémon game, you know that this is a legendary from Hoenn. Even in MAO, it would be strange to find it in Johto.

Ange and Kinder might see this from a distance. The Registeel starts moving towards Lux, waving its arms.

((OOC: Note that you may not bunny the Registeel. It is a GM controlled character.))

__________________

roxy ∙ jane ∙ dirk ∙ callieHope to me is all about believing in stuff.

The black clouds were billowing high into the sky, and it almost felt like it was getting hotter. Gaebora was becoming a bit uneasy as they continued to walk towards where Dark Cave's entrance always was on Route 31. It was clear what the problem was as the approached closer: A wall of flames was blocking the path towards Violet City. There were trainers trying to use their water Pokémon to put out the flames, but it was to no avail. Nothing was putting the flames down, even with their combined efforts.

Geoff didn't want to get too close yet. He knew he needed to continue forward, but he didn't want to risk his Pokémon or his own life. It was a rare selfish moment for Geoff, but when it was a life or death situation he wasn't in the same mindset of putting everyone before himself. He'd contribute if they couldn't get it down, but until then he was willing to take a step back.

There were trainers gathered outside of what appeared to be Dark Cave as well. For what Geoff could figure out, it appeared there was a glitch in the game with the cave. Traditionally you would need flash to travel over to Route 46, but players are getting through easily right now, as the cave doesn't seem to be dark, nor is there anything blocking the way that would require Strength to move. Geoff didn't like this, but it was only a minor thing that might be nothing but helpful for him.

Then it hit. It felt like an earthquake. Something was up, and Geoff knew it. Gaebora wasn't feeling happy either. Geoff returned him to his Pokéball, so if something was happening at least he would be safe in there. Geoff turned around to see girl who looked like she had been knocked off her balace from the tremor. Heck, it even looked like the tremor had it's epicenter right at her feet. She was of medium height, and had white and red hair. Strange hair colors, but hey, it WAS a Pokémon game.

The last thing that Geoff expected happened though: something crawled out from the ground that the tremor caused. Definitely not something that would normally occur in a Pokémon game. It was weird though, as Geoff could recognize what was emerging: it had a metallic appearance, and it was shades of gray. It had seven red dots for a face, as well as semi-skinny arms, but a very dense and sturdy body.

Geoff approached the scene, to at least try to help out the mystery trainer. It was clear she wasn't an NPC from her reactions. The only thing going through Geoff's head though, was not one of trying to be helpful. All he could think of was why a Registeel would be in Johto, and why was it even programmed into this part of the game? Something wasn't right.

Soon, after the young girl left Lux, the ground started to shake. Then, soon after, the ground erupted from underneath. And just before Lux's eyes, there was a familiar pokemon that was coated with silver, and seemed to be made out of a metallic compound. It was definitely a Registeel, right.

"Oh wooooow, no way!" said Lux in an awe. "An honest to goodness Registeel! Oh, my, gastrodon; I've read you in picture books!! This is soooooo awesome!"

However, the Registeel wasn't as impressed in Lux. It looked irritated; it started to approach Lux as it swung it's black, metallic arms around. "Ahhh, so you wanna play!" Lux realized, as she got out a pokeball. "Alrightie! I'm gonna catch ya, and name you, Class-53XLU-Itemfinder! But be sure not to scare Pidgey, okay? He gets scared alot. Anyway! Let see if this works!" She then threw the pokebal as hard as she could. "Pokebaaaaall, let's go!"

Class-53XLU-Itemfinder

The pokéball bounced on Registeel's head and the pokémon began turning red, as they do when they are about to get sucked into a pokéball.

But then, it seemed like Registeel decided that it was so very wrong to get caught. So the red glow disappeared and the pokéball bounced back down onto the ground - and even broke!

Now a bit confused, the large legendary stopped waving his arms around and looked at the two trainers in front of him. He took aim at the approaching Kinder, by letting huge images of crosshairs fly through the air to encircle the boy for a moment before they dissipated. But a strange sensation should come over the target by now, as if it just knew that it had been Locked On. "It" now being Kinder.

Oh my. Knowing anything about Registeel should make being Locked On by it a horrifying thought. What if a Zap Cannon came next? How to survive this?

__________________

roxy ∙ jane ∙ dirk ∙ callieHope to me is all about believing in stuff.

A little Caterpie sat on the stake of a fence. Behind him, Mr. Pokemon tended studiously to continuous crops. The little creature watched this and sighed. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be with Ange. He was supposed to be a Metapod by now.

Why wasn’t he there? Because of his dumb stomach.

He should have ignored it. He should have gone back when Ange said so or before she said so. Then he wouldn’t be here. Ugh... Bad stomach. BAD!

So he sat there and waited for Ange, like she said to. Or like that pink girl said to. She would come back, she said she would. But... why? It wasn’t safe too. Even he could smell a fire from here, and it was getting pretty bad. What if she got caught in it? What if... what if that dumb jello blob couldn’t protect Ange. Ooh....

The very thought burned him up. Kii bounded to the ground and scuttled away towards the fire. He wasn’t entirely sure how well he would do in it.

However, he would have to try and brave it! For Ange~!

--

Meanwhile, that little girl was feeling her way into a cave. It was nice and cool in here, something Sia was relieved about. He watched his trainer, who still had her eyes peacefully closed. He wondered why she had chosen that. Was her world a place where people didn’t need eyes? It was such a strange thing. Ange paid this no mind, tilting her head to the right in puzzlement. She could hear a lot of noises: wings, a loud thudding somewhere up ahead. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Then Sia let out a gurgle and despite herself, Ange reopened her eyes. It was dark, which didn’t bother her, but evidently Sia could see something. That something was probably not good. “...Where are we going?” she asked in curiosity. Sia only gurgled, shaking where he floated.

Any other trainer would have been rather horrified or curious and peeked their head over. Not Ange. Even if she had caught a glimpse of the Registeel, she probably would only be confused or rather disturbed by the size of the beast. Monster. Whichever. In any case, Sia did not really want his trainer knowing and, without permission, floated her closer to the entrance of the cave. Then he went to see what was going on. Though what was going on was a Registeel attacking some poor child. Well, that would not do. He released a wave of Psychic energy, hoping to distract the large creature.

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